


on loan

by hardlygolden



Category: Supernatural
Genre: Gen, Reunions, Schmoop
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2010-11-19
Updated: 2010-11-19
Packaged: 2017-10-13 06:53:22
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,505
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/134248
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/hardlygolden/pseuds/hardlygolden
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Originally posted in fleshflutter's <i>The Sam and Dean are reunited (or Dean at least finds out Sam isn't dead) comment-fic meme</i> on lj, for the prompt: When Ben starts middle school he can't stop talking about how awesome his new English teacher, Mr. Wesson, is. One day Dean picks him up from school and sees for himself.</p>
            </blockquote>





	on loan

**Author's Note:**

> Written before 6.01, so no spoilers for anything past season five.

Ben's seated cross-legged in front of the bookcase. "I have to do a book report at school this week," he says. "Except I don’t know what book to do it on.”

“Don’t you have a book you could use?” Dean asks.

Ben shakes his head. “I only have  _kid’s_  books,” he says. “I don’t really read much anymore, except comics.”

“Hey,” says Dean, shoving his hands in his pockets. “Nothing wrong with the classics. Batman, Spiderman...”

Lisa shoots him a glare. “What?” Dean says. “They  _are_  classics.”

“It’s a book report, Dean,” Lisa says, “not a comic book report. Here,” she kneels on the floor next to Ben, peering at the books assembled there. “I might have something suitable.”

"I don't think Ben's class are quite ready to join Oprah's Book Club yet," says Dean, reaching out to pry  _The Secret_  from her hands.

"Have you got a better idea?" she says, and Dean finds himself nodding.

"Yeah, actually. Come with me," he says, and Ben obediently trots behind as Dean heads for the Impala. It's dark outside - the streetlight across the road has been out for months – but Dean knows exactly where he’s looking, and he pulls the book from the compartment where it’s hidden and passes it to Ben without a word.

As soon as they are under the porch light Ben peers at the cover. “I’ve never heard of this book before,” he says, doubtful. 

In the dim light, Dean could almost let himself believe that it’s another night, another kid clutching that same book. “Trust me,” Dean says, and his voice doesn’t shake at all, “I think you’re really going to like it.”

*

"Ben," Lisa calls, from where she's setting the dining room table. "Dinner's ready."

"Just a minute," comes the answering shout.

Lisa rolls her eyes. “My son, ladies and gentleman!” 

Dean pulls the meatloaf out of the oven. It looks betters than his previous attempts, but that is still no great achievement.

"Ben!" Lisa calls again, louder this time.

“I said I was coming,” Ben says in an aggrieved tone, as he appears in the doorway. “Hey, Dean.”

Dean sketches a mock-salute, and Ben grins.

“It’s not like you to be late to dinner,” Lisa says, reaching her hand to his forehead. “Are you feeling okay?”

Ben snorts. “I’m fine, mom,” he says, and sits down and takes a huge bite of meatloaf, as if to prove his point. “I was just reading.”

"Sorry about the meatloaf," Dean says: a pre-emptive apology.

"The meatloaf’s fine, Dean,” Lisa says, as Ben flicks him a thumbs-up. Dean takes a bite, and hey, what do you know, it’s actually pretty good.

"What are you reading, Ben?" Lisa asks. "I haven't seen you this absorbed in a book, since, well - ever."

Ben passes it to her. " _The Outsiders_ ," he says. "Dean lent it to me, for my book report. It's really great.”

Lisa opens it up, and Dean’s watching for it so he can tell the exact moment she notices the name scrawled on the inside cover.

When she hands it back to Ben, she’s looking straight at Dean as she says, “Take real good care of this, won’t you, sweetie,” and Ben rolls his eyes, but Dean is grateful to Lisa for saying what he had wanted to say from the moment he pulled that book out of the trunk.

He’s also grateful she doesn’t try to get him to talk about it, because he wouldn’t know where to begin.

*

Ben’s holed up in his room the next three nights working on his book report.

The next week, he comes home beaming and flourishing a piece of paper. He waves it in front of Dean’s face so quickly that for a moment all Dean sees is what looks like a devil’s trap, and his heart thinks  _Sam_  in a moment of sheer, unfounded optimism but then reality kicks in and his brain catches up with his eyes. A+, in what could be anyone’s handwriting.

“Good job, buddy,” he says, and he makes sure it sounds genuine, because Ben deserves that.

“Mr Wesson loved my book report,” Ben says. “And guess what? He said it was his favourite book when he was my age, too.”

“Yeah,” Dean says, and suddenly his chest feels impossibly tight. “It’s a real good book.”

After Ben goes to bed that night Dean walks into the kitchen and finds Lisa staring at Ben’s book report, which she has stuck up on the fridge.

“I’ve never seen him like this before,” she whispers to Dean. “I don’t know whether to be proud or worried.”

Dean knows first-hand those feelings aren’t mutually exclusive, but instead he opts for: “Ben’s a smart kid.”

“I know that,” Lisa says. “But he’s never been a  _studious_  kid.”

“Enjoy it while it lasts,” Dean says, only half-joking.

*

It  _does_  last, though, is the thing, and Ben’s conversation becomes increasingly peppered with references to his English teacher, Mr Wesson.

Dean hides a smile, but even though he's smiling, there’s that tight feeling in his chest again, because replace ‘Wesson’ with ‘Wyatt’ and he’s had this conversation before. 

*

It's parent-teacher conference night at Ben’s school the next week, and Lisa is all geared up to go when she gets a phonecall that her sister in Brooklyn has just gone into labour, two weeks early,  
and suddenly she’s shrugging out of her light jacket and rummaging through the closet for her overnight bag – talking all the while. "If it's too weird..." she begins, and Dean stops her right there, because he's spent long enough with weird. 

“It’s fine,” he says, meaning it. “I’d be happy to go.”

It’s true – he is happy to go, but when Lisa tells Ben, Ben looks startled. Lisa’s too busy to notice, out the door five minutes later, and then it’s just Ben and Dean.

“If you don’t want me to go,” Dean begins, and Ben flushes guiltily – enough that Dean knows he wasn’t just imagining it, before, but what Ben says is: “No, it’s fine.”

* 

It’s strange, walking down unfamiliar corridors which Ben knows so well, but Dean’s been to plenty of middle schools in his lifetime, and they are all more similar than they are different.

Dean knows he shouldn’t be relieved that most of Ben’s teachers have an equal blend of praise and constructive criticism, but it’s actually reassuring that Ben hasn’t turned into Doogie Howser overnight. His math teacher in particular has quite a lot to say on the subject of Ben, most of it disapproving, which Dean thinks might explains Ben’s odd reluctance at Dean accompanying him to this thing, except Ben seems even jumpier after that.

As they approach the English classroom, Ben grabs his hand. “Wait,” he says, “before we go in, there’s something I have to tell you.”

“I thought you wanted me to meet the amazing Mr Wesson,” Dean says, but he’s willing to be persuaded. To be honest, he’s about this close to blowing that last parent-teacher interview off and taking Ben out for a sundae or something, anything to break this weird tension that has settled between them.

“I  _do_ ,” Ben says, gnawing his lip. “But there’s something I should have told you earlier.”

“Hey,” Dean says, sitting down on a nearby bench. “You can tell me anything.”

“I sort of lent him your book,” Ben says. “After my book report. He said he hadn’t read it in years...” 

“What,” Dean says, and he’s trying not to let on how angry he is, but judging by the expression on Ben’s face, he’s not doing such a bang-up job of it. 

Ben is speaking more hurriedly now: “... and he knows it’s yours, I  _told_  him it was just a loan, except now whenever I ask for it back he just keeps saying he knows you won’t mind, except I know you  _would_  mind.”

“Damn straight I mind,” grits out Dean, already striding for the classroom door, because he doesn’t have much left to remember Sam by, let alone to remember Sam’s  _childhood_  by, and it’s one thing to lend a book to Ben and another thing entirely for this  _fucking_  teacher to just  _take the book from a fucking kid and not fucking give it back_  and he is so, so ready to hurl that and a myriad of other insults -- except as he walks into the classroom suddenly he’s frozen in place because Mr Wesson is looking up at him, eyes wide - except it’s not Mr Wesson, is it.

Ben bursts into the room behind him. “Don’t be mad,” he says, hands extended, “but Dean  _really, really_  needs his book back. Like, right now.”

“No,” Dean says, eyes never leaving Sam’s face, not for a moment. There’s a litany of  _SamSamSamSamSam_  echoing in his mind and his heart, and he hadn’t realised exactly how heavy it was, this weight that he had been carrying around, until it was lifted from him. “He was right, Ben. I don’t mind him having it.”


End file.
